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Tom Arnold

@tjarnold.bsky.social
2.3K followers 522 following 517 posts

Manchester-based policy wonk working on devolution, housing and planning. Supporter of Leicester City and Lancashire because I simply can’t get enough of poorly run formerly successful sporting institutions.

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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This couldn’t sound more up my street, on the list it goes.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
They can try rebranding them as many times as they like, the 'river rooms' will always be Those Boiling Hot Pods Downstairs.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Had similar thoughts visiting Lewes for a wedding last month. Lovely town, very affluent, shame much of the centre is either a race track or car park depending on the time of day.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It looked like the (surprisingly young) woman setting up the display was gearing up to be there all day so I guess that was somewhere to rest and shoot the breeze with passers by. Nice day for it to be fair, and just across the road from a belting chippy.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I was familiar with ‘Keir Starmer is dimming the sun‘ but not with the idea that tiny particles of graphene are being pumped into the atmosphere by governments in an effort to manipulate the weather. This was part of a larger display covering digital ID, cashless societies and chemtrails.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Spotted a new conspiracy theory in Didsbury yesterday.
Part of a series of street posters. The top poster says ‘The Dimming’. The bottom poster says ‘Graphene rain: scientist sounds alarm’.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Or support Leicester and let your club do all the work for you.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
🙏🏻
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
If government u-turns on this very limited form of fiscal devolution it might as well give up on the much more comprehensive programme it’s planning to set out in the next few weeks.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Losing the plot a bit over coverage of the visitor levy. It’s framed here as a centrally imposed tax (it’s not), it will be a blanket 5% (it won’t), and that where levied it will obviously destroy tourism (it’s a very common tax in other countries, it doesn’t). www.theguardian.com/business/202...
theguardian.com
Ministers face backlash from hospitality industry over ‘tourist tax’ plans
Many mayors welcome power to impose tourist tax but industry warns of ‘irreparable harm’ and job losses
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
www.lgcplus.com/politics/gov...
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Can somebody please sign this bloke up for a permanent yoga retreat somewhere very far away so he can no longer manage my football club.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Was at Old Trafford last weekend for Lancs v Northants. Lancs were bowled out first innings about 12 minutes before the scheduled lunch. Take lunch early and let Northants start their second innings after? Absolutely not, let’s have a 10 minute changeover, then 2 overs, then a 40 minute break.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This bit made me chuckle. Every 20 year old who has ever been to Reading/Leeds has felt they were too old to be there. I was 17 when I went to Leeds and felt I was borderline too old then. It’s a festival for teenagers, nothing wrong with that.

"None of my friends wanted to go [this year] because of the fact that there's so many 16 to 18-year-olds," Reggie Tanner says.
"They'd rather go to another festival where the demographic's a bit older."
The 20-year-old attended Reading Festival when he was age 16 and 17 as he says it was a "massive trend" which died down when he turned 18.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
You could ask me tomorrow and this would probably change but for now: 1. The Magnet, Stockport 2. The Marble Arch, Manchester 3. The New Oxford, Salford 4. Stalybridge Station Buffet Bar 5. The City Arms, Manchester
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Heard them on 6 Music about 18 months ago and assumed it was a Silkworm deep cut or something similarly 90s college rock.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
It’s a great New York novel as well as a great cricket novel - hope you enjoy it.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
If it’s better than A Month In The Country it must be very good indeed. I shall add it to my reading list. Speaking of novels that arent specifically about cricket but where it plays a major role, have you read Netherland by Joseph O’Neill?
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
What a photo on @cricinfo.com
The first test between England and Pakistan at Headingley, 19 August 2026. The sky is very dark and there are five fielders in the slip cordon.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Me on MapTap 🤝 Marcus Garvey “There are too many small countries in Africa”
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Yeah this is it. It’s skinfades. There are young lads at my gym who go once a week.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Taken the afternoon off due to a severe case of #metrobankfever
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Sets us up nicely for a panicked recall for Jack Leach after losing the first two Ashes tests next summer and/or a clamour for Stokes to un-retire.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Arrived into Euston to see lots of people wearing cowboy hats? Who appear to be heading to see someone called Luke Combs? Who is apparently a country singer? And seemingly big enough to sell out several nights at Wembley Stadium?
Alan Partidge saying “stop talking about American things”.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I have it on good authority that Rayner has previously frequented Satan's Hollow.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Great piece. This quote from Tony Travers is spot on. Local authority budgets are relatively clear, transparent and easy to scrutinise. Combined authority budgets - not so much.
It has taken years for me to even roughly understand the labyrinthine public-private web of finances in the Tees Valley, a mayoralty that lent out hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer cash without any written agreements. Even Tony Travers, former Audit Commission chief and now a professor at the London School of Economics, struggles to follow mayors' financial arrangements. "It is virtually impossible to read existing combined authority budgets and accounts in a way that non-accountants could understand," he says, noting that further devolution will land in a local media landscape that is a "shadow of its former self".
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Kasper has a severe case of Greater Manchester mayoral by election fever #dogsatpollingstations
A small dog standing in front of a sign that says Polling Station.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Recently discovered that my 70 year old Dad was upsold these at the opticians after going in to buy some sunglasses. He now wanders around the garden listening to The Rest Is History through them and asking AI questions about plants. I am strongly discouraging him from wearing them in public.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Don’t know if you’ve seen but you get a (kind) shoutout in Janan Ganesh’s column today. Not sure about the rest of the piece mind…
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Sounds like the Council of Nations and Regions is dead. RIP u r wiv da intergovernmental angels now.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
If Burnham is reviving the National Economic Council and mayors are attending, there are now three separate intergovernmental forums for English mayoral-national relations (Council of Nations & Regions and the Mayoral Council being the others). A bit of institutional tidying up required I think.
theguardian.com
Regional mayors to take key roles in UK policy decisions as part of No 10 North plans
Burnham says ‘no one in government loses when power is shared’ as he revives Brown-era national economic council
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Notwithstanding the judicial reviews already launched, and those likely to come, I think it's full speed ahead with LGR and the new SoS won't change that.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
I didn't love that, but really like White Feather so quietly optimistic for the new album.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Yeah, same. Must be one of my most listened to full albums of recent years. Funnily enough I can take or leave most of her other records. NFR and Chemtrails are the only others I get much from.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
I am utterly oblivious to most popular music but Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is one of my favourite albums of this decade.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Glad this isn't just me Martin. Mostly I'm confident enough now to just roll with the Fs but occasionally I'll meet someone new or be doing some public speaking and be horribly aware of it.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Watching the new PM enter Downing Street and recognising all the Manchester politicos and policy wonks.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
English men's cricket learning nothing from English men's football in the dangers of going straight from chilled out vibes merchant to cold-eyed disciplinarian lunatic.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Happy Local Government Reorganisation Day to all who celebrate.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
He also appeared on Football Cliches, apparently at his request, and managed somehow to sound like he was thinking about football for the very first time.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
I am loath to be a chippy Northerner and complain about the London-centric media but millions of homes in the North West have been smothered by acrid smog for the last 4 days and I have barely seen mention of it in national outlets.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Leicester City Football Club, 2022-present
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Richard III has somehow been lost underneath the car park again.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
The fans hate the players, the players hate the fans, it’s going really well.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Leicester on the other hand have adopted an ‘only knobheads’ recruitment policy in recent years.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Ms Ray ft Nourished By Time - Miss You m.youtube.com/watch?v=eWSP...
m.youtube.com
Ms Ray - Miss You with Nourished By Time (OFFICIAL LYRICS VIDEO)
YouTube video by Ms Ray
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Same here. The food is always fantastic and the staff so friendly. As @jack-bailey.co.uk says, the owners are reopening under a different name in the same location so I‘m sure whatever replaces Cantaloupe will still be worth visiting.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Sorry for your loss Katie. Such a lovely photo.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Yes the M60 plus Lancashire Hill create a bit of a barrier for development of new town centre adjacent suburbs really. I believe there are quite a few new homes planned near the river and Vernon Park as part of the mayoral development corporation’s next phase.
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Tom Arnold @tjarnold.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
I will do! Not been to either of those yet. The Magnet remains my favourite pub in GM. Really looking forward to the new bookshop at Weir Mill too.
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